February 24, 2015
Unbiased Political News
In a hostage-taking move, the Republican led House of Representatives voted to fund and keep Homeland Security open through September 30th of this year — on the condition that President Obama throw out his executive action to protect immigrants. If the president does not comply with Republican demands, they are prepared to risk America’s safety by closing the agency responsible for protecting the U.S. from foreign and domestic threats. The move is particularly puzzling, since Citizenship and Immigration Services is the department responsible for carrying out Mr. Obama’s executive orders and not Homeland Security.
Of Homeland Security’s approximately 230,000 employees, roughly 30,000 DHS workers could be affected and would go unpaid, including 80% of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) workers who are currently supporting U.S. communities struggling with an onslaught of winter snowstorms. According to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, if Congress fails to agree to a new budget for his department by the end of Friday, the U.S. will be deeply disadvantaged to protect against extremist groups such as ISIS.
“If we are going to shut down, we are greatly compromised,” Johnson said during a briefing at the National Governors Association. “This is not the time to be shutting down the Department of Homeland Security by failure to act,” Johnson added, citing new challenges from global terrorism, cybersecurity threats, the potential spike in illegal migration on the Southwest border and a recent terror threat against the Mall of America in Minneapolis by the Africa-based al-Shabab terror group.
Unbiased Political News
However, Republican Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina disagreed, saying he believes letting the agency run out of funding was “probably” worth it to defend the Constitution (a veiled attempt to suggest Mr. Obama’s executive actions were unconstitutional).
Although Johnson agreed Congress should debate the topic of immigration, he made it clear lawmakers should not play politics with America’s security by allowing a dispute with President Obama to strangely affect a complete shut down of a department as essential as Homeland Security.
This is unbelievable. These Repubs would put the whole country at risk just to prove a point. Smdh!
As I expressed a few weeks ago, I feel the President is in a much stronger position with Repubs now in control of the House and the Senate.
First- It's the final 2yrs of his Presidency and he's finally free to fight for the things he truly believes in without having to worry about the Dems or being re-elected.
2nd- the GOP's hatred for the President notwithstanding, FOR DECADES, they've demomstrated time and time again that they have NO freaking clue as to how to govern effectively…and responsibly.
They say and do all kinds of reprehensible isht. Box themselves in. And then end up standing around looking stupid while trying to blame the Dems for their own collective Failure….smh.
They are a pathetic lot. A dangeroulsy pathetic lot. But a pathetic lot nonetheless.
Well the President now appears to be ready and willing to go toe-to-toe with them on darn near any issue, including this one.
…and We shall see how it all turns out.
Patrick J. Buchanan:
Since the Republican victory in November, it has not been a good quarter for the GOP.
Obama, repudiated, seems liberated. Ignoring GOP protests, he issued an executive amnesty for five million illegal immigrants. He promises to veto the Keystone XL pipeline. He taunted the GOP in his State of the Union. He is back to 50 percent approval in the polls.
The economy added 1 million jobs in three months. The Dow Jones Friday hit a record high. Senate Democrats are happily filibustering to death the House bill to defund amnesty. And if the Department of Homeland Security has to shut down for lack of funds, Obama and his media allies will see to it the GOP is blamed.
And the national rollouts of the Bush III and Walker campaigns have shown that neither is ready for prime time. [….]
H/T: The American Conservative
March 3, 2015
BREAKING News: "John Boehner Blinks, Will Allow For Clean Funding Of Department Of Homeland Security"
WASHINGTON — The House will finally vote on a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security without immigration measures, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told his conference at a meeting on Tuesday.
Now, the House is conceding defeat on getting immigration measures into the DHS bill. The vote could come as soon as Tuesday. [….]
H/T: HuffPost
Okay so….a show of hands of who is suprised by this INEVITABLE news?! …..(looking around the room)……
Anybody? ……No?
I thought NOT.